EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND EMOTIONAL REACTIVITY AND RECOVERY IN LABORATORY CONTEXT

Pablo Fernández-Berrocal and Natalio Extremera

University of Málaga

This research analysed the influence of Emotional Intelligence (EI) on emotional responses in laboratory context. Specifically, 1) how does EI affect previous mood states? 2) How does persons’ emotional reactivity to different mood induction conditions depend on their EI? 3) How does EI help to a better mood recovery? For these purposes, 155 participants (123 women and 32 men) were measured for EI using Trait Meta-Mood Scale (TMMS) one month before the experimental session. The TMMS assesses perceived ability to (a) attend to moods (Attention), (b) discriminate clearly among moods (Clarity), and (c) regulate moods (Repair). The experiment comprised three phases. At time 1 experimenter assessed mood states of the participants before mood induction. At time 2 (mood reactivity phase), participants were randomly assigned to one of the three experimental conditions: amusement, anger, and sadness mood conditions. Subsequently participants were assessed in their mood states. At time 3 (mood recovery phase), following a rest period participants were evaluated in mood states and intrusive thoughts measures. Results indicated that EI, specifically Clarity and Repair, was related to previous mood states, emotional reactivity to mood induction conditions, and emotional recovery. Clarity and Repair play different but complementary roles in processing emotional situations generated in laboratory context. In this sense, EI could join the list of personal and interpersonal factors that contribute to the efficient processing of positive and negative emotions.